I didn't kill her. But I wanted to. Just like I want to kill anyone who says that to me. I do something for my job seven days a week. I absolutely spend hours every day of the semester working on my job, grading, reading, preparing, dealing with students.

Even during winter and summer breaks I work on this, writing, publishing, updating courses with new books, assignments, etc.

Yet, I've never met a layperson who didn't think I was just a lazy motherfucker who worked two days a week.

14 comments:

That department assistant must be new, not very smart, and/or recently transferred from upper administration (where, sadly, they also appear to believe such things).

Not that I'm condoning this sort of thing, but, at least within the academy, all our administrative overlords have to do to learn that we work at all hours is to check our email activity (and if they really wanted us to be more productive, they might shut off access, at least for faculty, for all but a few hours a day. I suspect most of us would adapt quite happily, but that approach would violate the customer-service model).

The colleague I work closest with in the department has a three day teaching schedule, and he spends the rest of the time researching at working at home. I often hear complaints about his schedule, and that's from other faculty! Of course - they don't see him arriving at 8am, or leaving at 9pm. His schedule is such that he has long teaching days, plus the work he does from home.

Related to that, I have 50% reassign time, meaning I only have half the teaching load that I normally do. That doesn't mean that I have 50% of the work! But that didn't stop one of my colleagues from constantly nagging me about "only working half time".

However, there are some rotten apples in our barrel, who teach infrequently, are never on campus, who don't prepare for meetings, and who never respond quickly (if at all) to messages. These are the folks who, while a minority, perpetuate the myth of professor as easy life.

It is this pervasive idea that "if you're not in front of the class, you're not working" that has caused me to be quite leery of engaging in games of "what does Colleague X do all day" with other colleagues. If you are busy all day but not always in plain sight of others, you might concede that X is busy, too. If you haven't shadowed X for several days, then perhaps you have little foundation for your implied derision. And if you have found time to shadow X for several days, but not in a formal capacity sanctioned by your department (annual review, etc.), then what do YOU do all day, anyway?

What Was This?

College Misery was a dysfunctional group blog where professors got the chance to release some of the frustration that built up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.

Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.